Posts tagged: Forest Legacy Program

A view of the Kootenai River from the Boundary Connections project in Idaho. U.S. Forest Service photo.

The U.S. Forest Service recently announced grants totaling $52.2 million for 18 conservation and working lands projects across the U.S. this year. The landscapes are some of the country’s most beautiful spaces and will now be protected for future generations to enjoy.

Since 1990, the Forest Legacy Program has protected more than 2.2 million acres through public-private partnership using federal and leveraged funds of more than $562 million. We work with private landowners, states and conservation groups to promote sustainable, working forests. Read more »

The USDA Forest Service recently reached a milestone of protecting more than 2 million acres of private forests threatened by development. The Forest Service’s Northeastern Area helped the agency reach the milestone when the state of Ohio purchased a 15,000-acre property as the new Vinton Furnace State Experimental Forest approximately 90 miles south of Columbus. Read more »

Today, President Barack Obama, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, hosted the White House Conference on America’s Great Outdoors, a gathering of leaders from communities across the country who are working to protect their outdoor spaces.

The USDA Forest Service is proud to join the Natural Resources Conservation Service and other USDA agencies in supporting the Get Outdoors Initiative to motivate healthy lifestyles and activities.

The goals of this Presidential Initiative coincide with one of the Forest Service’s primary missions – to actively support, promote, and fund numerous related programs, projects, and initiatives with wide-ranging missions and goals. In fact, just this week, the Forest Service has made a few announcements in this area.

On Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced the availability of Forest Legacy Program grants to protect sensitive lands in 33 states and territories. These local projects can provide the background for local conservation education and interpretive programs associated with local, state and federal programs aimed whose goals and missions are closely related to healthy lifestyles, conservation education, and the challenge of reconnecting Americans and American families to the outdoors.

Also this week, the Forest Service announced major challenge cost-sharing opportunities for the More Kids in the Woods program, whose mission is to provide more natural resource and nature experiences to children across the country. These future leaders will be better able to make sound environmental and natural resource decisions if they have developed an understanding and an ownership of the public lands this agency manages.

In speaking about the More Kids in the Woods initiative, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell commented that this and related programs are vital in opening doors to urban and rural kids and their families through projects that promote healthier lifestyles while preparing them to cope with conservation issues of the 21st century: climate change, water quality and sustainable management of natural and cultural resources.

We look forward to hearing from people around the country over the coming weeks and months as part of the America’s Great Outdoors initiative, and to continuing our work with our state, local, and private partners help us to raise environmental and conservation awareness, and to help prepare future leaders for this agency, and for our country.